Stuff happens. That’s just how the universe works. We all have bad stuff going on in our lives, and if you don’t at the moment that bad stuff will inevitably greet you in the future with a blood-painted smile and sharp claws. I’ve seen this image in front of me many times in my life. Sometimes I thought it would pick me up and swallow me whole. Sure, my depression and insecurities have shaped me into who I am today, but sometimes I wish I could be the manic pixie dream girl instead of the John Green heroine I’ve come to be.

My first meet-up with the monster that is depression went down when I was 10. The soft faux-fur blanket of childhood was ripped out from under me as everything around my chubby-child frame crumbled. Divorce, sick sibling, poverty, and crappy genetics led me to fall into a constant state of desolation. I cried myself to sleep at night and spoke out of turn at school. When I cut myself for the first time a month before I started middle school, I didn’t even know the “proper” way to do it. I was uneducated and desperate. Once my mom found out and I got help, I thought it would get better. Ha ha. It’s never that easy.


I was greeted by darkness again in seventh grade. I was having severe mood swings, cycling from euphoric to suicidal multiple times a day. We met with a psychiatrist who put me on aripiprazole after a ten minute conversation. In the next six weeks I went from slightly off-balance to constantly fantasizing about my suicide, kept from sleep by auditory hallucinations, and withdrawing from society as a whole. I would go to bed right after dinner and wake up 10+ hours later feeling exhausted. We rang out New Year’s 2013 on the third floor of a psychiatric hospital, the heater whirring in the dim, fluorescently lit hallway with clouds and flowers painted on the walls.

I've fluctuated quite a bit since then, and I can’t say I’ll ever be a completely normal, mentally healthy member of society. I’ve healed some, sure, but there are always bad days, good days, and days that are too good to be true. I’m finding my passions now – writing, performing, comedy – and throwing myself into them. I fear insanity and complacency. As I enter high school, I feel a certain sense of self. I’m confident in my ability to deal with instability. I am not perfect. I am not completely sane or emotionally stable or particularly magnificent. I am me, and I am dealing with the bloody claws as best I can. People and emotions are notoriously unreliable, but a pen and paper will never let you down. Stay human. Stay aware. Depression is an ugly monster, but it’s also a spineless coward. Don’t let it consume you.